Chapter Twenty
The Iron Despot
Iron Glass did not welcome daylight.
Even at midday, heavy velvet curtains sealed the throne room against the sun. Dark fabric hung from the arched windows like funeral shrouds, leaving the immense chamber lit only by the blood-orange glow of braziers set low along the walls.
Myrrh burned in shallow silver bowls.
The sweet smoke did little to conceal what lived beneath it.
Molten metal.
Old blood.
Sulfur.
The silver-smelting vaults beneath the estate had been working since before dawn. Their furnaces vibrated through the obsidian floor in slow, steady pulses, like the heartbeat of some vast creature sleeping under the mountain.
Victor Kane sat upon the raised black throne and listened to it breathe.
Order had a sound.
It was the strike of a hammer
